In a system of probes that are distributed throughout a network but do not have assigned IP addresses, a server controls the probes over an IP network using a protocol that rides on top of the IP layer. The system borrows (or spoofs) IP addresses of devices in the network and uses the borrowed IP addresses for communication with, and management of, the probes.
For some customers, however, there are IP addresses in their networks that should not be borrowed. For example, the presence of IP traffic on some specific IP addresses in the customer's network may falsely trigger alerts or other concerns within the network.